HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Monday, January 22, 2007

Valium Marilyn and My Dreams

IVY said...
Okay GLED I left this comment on my blog on the entry entitled.. (you will NEVER guess, ohmylikegod!) "WITH HOLD."

"NO! I WANT TO HEAR MORE! TELL ME BOUT THE IRISH MAN AND THE VALIUM LADY AND MOST OF ALL ABOUT THE WORST DAYS. I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE WORST DAYS SO I CAN MAKE THEM FLUORESCENT. IT IS MY NEW FLASHLIGHT SCIENCE PROJECT. YOUR MISERY IS MY EXPLOITATION."

22 January 2007 08:28

Okay, to Ivy and all of you attentionally challenged who have heard me mention Valium Marilyn: let me explain here who she is.

Marilyn is my dear friend. I only found out about a month ago that she actually is of pensionable age; ie well over 60. As I did say somewhere before: she takes her false teeth OUT and puts her reading glasses ON before toking a pipe of crack cocaine...

I call her Marilyn because if you imagined Marilyn Monroe, not dead, aged 60+ with the same blonde hair/ blue-green eyes - and yet transformed somehow into a London cockney with extraordinarily brash voice plus addicted to Valium, temazepam, anything else that knocks you out enough to have you wobbling this way and that across the London pavements... then you have Valium Marilyn. She can be VERY LOUD INDEED. 1. because she has an exceedingly loud voice and 2. because she is most probably half deaf.

Okay, Ivy. The Irish guy I mentioned in your comments box (we were talking about embarrassing behaviour) is one called Jimmy who used to hang out with me occasionally when I was a beggar. He took up spot begging for a week. Got loads of money (beginner's luck). I told him it wouldn't last. And sure enough, don't know what it is in that "profession"... do you lose your freshness? Don't know. But after about a week of daily doing this his earnings dried up from an easy £10-£20 in an hour or two to next to nothing so he gave up. But the specific embarrassing escapade in question involved him opening a black plastic-wrapped white rock of crack on the bus in full view of several scandalized of the travelling public. Upon pointing this out to said Irish Jimmy, he just said "Oh, [vulgar language] them." So there you have THAT.

On to dreams: dream 1: I dreamt I was in my blogger friend Ruth's garden. (See Ruth's garden - to the right.) It was an enormous park-sized garden, fabulously planted. Probably what Ruth would have if she were a billionaire. In the middle of said garden was a marquee, so sturdy that the central top "beam" of this tent contained a caffeteria IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCAFFOLING POLE... This coffeeshop was exceedingly popular, full of middle-aged couples having cream teas over the spectacularly planted endlessly rolling parkland of Ruth's garden below. (This is a dream, so you can be inside a tent and yet over the parkland at the same time, just gimme a break on that one, okay??!) I don't know what this dream could mean... Ruth? Anyone? Any ideas... Just my mind playing out in my sleep, I'd s'pose... And I do know quite a LOT about Ruth's garden. You can too, she's online in my links for all to see...

Dream #2 seems to be more meaningful. I seem to have had this dream possibly twice. In this dream I am in prison, but I am a bird (ie. a small seagull/arctic tern type of bird). The window of the prison is open, but there is someone standing by it half blocking the way... if only I wanted to get out. Eventually I do fly out of the window, only to be shot down in my left wing by a prison guard... I go circling down and down and eventually land on the heavily fortified PRISON BEACH. (I've dreamt more than a couple of times about a prison that encompasses a beach.) And then the dream ends with me walking across the sands... I seem to recollect, as a human being. But I'm still in prison...

Has anyone an interpretation for me?

Bearing in mind that I'm a hapless heroin junkie and have been for over seven years the symbolism of open window (easy escape) seems to me obvious... but the being shot down = the reality of my repeated relapse and failure. And human, during the waking day, I'm still in the prison of my addiction.

Comments? Anyone??

7 comments:

RUTH said...

Marilyn sounds a character. I must agree with your own analysis of the second dream. Re; the one about my garden.....a garden is somewhere to escape to so that explains that as per your second dream; the fact it's MY garden.....you visit me on my blog and I'm a non-junkie....something you aspire to be?? The coffee shop...you probably fancy some of my good old fashioned home cooking? I'll go look in the book now and see what it really means.
Rx

Anonymous said...

Yes, the reason I so like visiting your blog is because it encapsulates a kind of "normality" that is really charming and lovely. And you work to achieve loveliness in your garden, your blog.

That's what I love about Mousie's blog too (have you seen her picture? She looks just like I'd have imagined...!)

When I was little my stepmum was well into gardening. Her mum, too. So it's always been around me. One time I remember sprinkling some "baby's breath" or similar (you know that 8" high cloudy flowery stuff: florists would use it as background padding maybe in bouquets). Anyhow I sprinkled it down beside some conifers, just left it there. No special compost. Never watered it. AND IT GREW!!!!

The older I get I now have dumped all "trendiness" type things behind me... I long to have a beautiful garden, too.

Yours was so amazing, as I say, you had a humungous tea-shoppe up high in that girder in the middle!! People came from far and wide to see it...

Anonymous said...

I am TOTALLY unqualified to interpret your dreams, Gledwood, but I might have an idea. I think that Ruth's garden is your longing fora new home, one where you feel comfortable and safe and secure. The popular place is just more of the same: the friends you'd have in this home, etc. I suggest this because I have similar dreams recurrently, and I have come to accept that what my subconscious wants is to settle down, be safe and happy, and stop all this turmoil. The peace of the garden and the comraderie of the people seem to fit that.

The other one -- not sure. But you are probably right. Dreamns where we're trying to escape (no matter what the circumstances) are supposed to mean that we feel trapped in life and incapable of freeing ourselves.

RUTH said...

I've popped the interpretation of some of the key words on my "please read" blog...(it's one I pop things on as a link sometimes) You'll find it here;
http://ruth-jenner.blogspot.com/
See what you think
Rx

Anonymous said...

The Final Quest
The Call

both by Rick Joyner

the prison thing sounds similar to a vision he had. these two books are freaking awesome.



didn't feel like logging in,

Ophelia

http://unravelmejesus.blogspot.com

Gledwood said...

Yes, Marilyn is a character and a half!!! Ruth I did look for what you said, but could not find it... I'm going to look again...

Okay, laters, ppl,

Gledsx

Anonymous said...

Sorry for my post .Where i can watch more info about?

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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